CNN's Conflicted Evan Perez: Nunes Memo 'Was a Dud,' But Dangerous

On Friday, CNN's Evan Perez insulted Congress as people who "don’t have any idea how the law works" relating to surveillance, claiming that "grave harm ... was done by the release of the Republican (Nunes) memo even though it was a dud."

How interesting, given that Perez knows, because he reported it in 2013, that Obama administration committed abuses serious enough to warrant an October 2011 FISA Court rebuke. Additionally, the now-FBI-defending Perez should know that in October 2016, the Obama administration admitted that it never changed its ways.

Friday - Anderson - Cooper - Perez - Praetorian

On Friday's Anderson Cooper 360, Perez played Praetorian guard:

A transcript follows this post.

Perez - Contentions

Perez's key contentions:

"... this entire fight ... is exposing the fact that our legislators ... really have no idea how the law works."

Truth - Harm - Release - Republican - Memo

"... the truth is that there was grave harm that was done by the release of the Republican memo even though it was a dud, there was information that really never gets released. ..."

The Nunes memo was such a "dud" that, as Andy McCarthy at National Review observed early Saturday:

Grassley-Graham - Memo - Claims - Nunes - Memo

The Grassley-Graham memo corroborates the claims in the Nunes memo: The Obama Justice Department and FBI used anonymously sourced, Clinton-campaign generated innuendo to convince the FISA court to issue surveillance warrants against Carter Page, and in doing so, they concealed the Clinton campaign’s role.

In 2013 at CNN.com, Perez reported:

Obama - Administration - Wednesday - Opinions - Court

The Obama administration on Wednesday declassified opinions from a secret court that oversees government surveillance showing the National Security Agency was broadly collecting domestic Internet communications of Americans and misrepresenting the scope of that effort to the court.

"Misrepresenting to the court" is exactly what the Nunes and Senate memos say the FBI did with the Steele dossier. The congressmen Perez considers ignoramuses understand that perfectly.

May - Development - Perez - Circa - Com

In May 2017, in a development Perez should recall, Circa.com reported the following October 2016 Obama administration admission: